by Craig Kelly
As the trial of officer Chauvin moves forward in the murder of George Floyd, I keep in the back of my mind that if one juror says not guilty there will be a mistrial and the prosecution will have to start all over again. In spite of the mountain of evidence against officer Chauvin, a mistrial is still a strong possibility, given the past history of juries in police trials.
If this happens people will walk away saying that Justice is blind, I disagree the justice system in America was never blind, and has always had both eyes open. This system has been operating on a set of norms and values since it was founded. These norms based on values of color were established by the founding fathers, who claimed to have christ-like values, while still owning African slaves. We pay homage to God by saying God Bless America and in God we trust is even printed on the money we spend. As a result, by adding him to the equation of injustice, we have made God complicit in the system of white supremacy. This system lasted for hundreds of years, it made the world and America rich, and never once did they acknowledge Black people as human beings. By Constitutional law in 1786. they were classified as 3/5 a person, but never recognized as a full human being. It is that historical mindset which is most often found in institutional policing of black people, not to mention, housing,courts, banking, education and all other aspects of American Life.
Chauvin was not the first white police officer to kill an unarmed black man and we can rest assured that he won't be the last. A study by the research group PLOS ONE in 2015 found : The probability of being black, unarmed and shot by police is about 3.5 times the probability of being white, unarmed and shot by the police. If you view a certain group of people as being subhuman, it would be painless to beat, torture, and murder them. In your mind you are not killing a human being, you are killing something subhuman, and as a result it's easier on your conscious mind; should you have one. Soldiers are often trained in war to develop a mental understanding that the enemy they are fighting is not human, It’s known as defacing the enemy.
A perception of fear is worth more than fear itself, because it's what you perceive to be true is true, if to no one else but you. For example in the book: “Breaking Ranks” by retired police chief Norm Stamper,A cop Exposed the Dark Side of American Policing: “ Simply put, white cops are afraid of black men we don't talk about it we pretend it doesn't exist, we claim “color blindness,” we say white officers treat black men the same way they treat white men. But that's a lie. In fact, the bigger,the darker the black man the greater the fear. The African American Community knows this. Hell, most whites know it. Yet even though it's a Central, if not defining ingredient in the makeup of police racism, white cops don't admit it to themselves or others.” Chapter 8, Why White Cops Kill Black Men, Page 91
This fear, real or unreal, has been a disabling factor in the lives black people and of color ever since we arrived in America, and in its wake has left us in a state of social deprivation and post-traumatic stress. The flight and fight response of our people has been working overtime; our trauma has been internalized, it works as a tool of self destruction, and is manifested in the way we interact with each other.
Black American did not create the problem of systemic racism or white privilege and we certainly can’t solve it. We can work with like minded people, who want to see structural changes in the policing of Black, Brown people, and not just street murals, saying Black Lives Matter. Police departments across the country are at a critical crossroad, especially here in Bridgeport, with a police chief and a personnel director just sentenced to federal prison for corruption and several court cases still pending; I ask do we have the will to change?
History has a way of recording things in a timely fashion, a pandemic, the brutal killing of George Floyd, millions of people responding globally and demanding change in the police and other systems of oppression. We know there has to be change, and hopefully soon, redirecting funds, yes, but totally defunding the police should never be on the table and is ridiculous. Most reasonable people will say: not all police are bad and that would be the truth, but what is also true, good cops must speak out against bad cops. In spite of their historical, and sadistic behavior, against Black people, we still need police.
Perhaps teaching and a historical understanding of Black and brown history may give some context to the people and police who most often encountered each other in the real world. Like most people who went to the public school system, the history of Black people who built this country for free has been set aside; they fought in all your wars, and gave America and the world hundreds of inventions. Still to this day our history is not told. Some people may say what is the value of this? I say : The least you know about someone, the least respect you have for them and the least you know about yourself, the least respect you have for yourself. In addition,when you systematically devalue a group of people, it robs your mind of objective thinking and your soul of humanity.
In closing, I would like to thank the Connecticut legalstors for passing a police reform bill, and the governor for signing it to law; now the hard part begins, the enforcement of the law. In addition, I want to encourage our congressional and senatorial representatives to sign the bill: H.R. 7120- George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020.
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.” Martin Luther King JR.
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